Search Engine Talk

SEO FOR 2006

2006-01-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

As you know, every year is always rocked by a plethora of changes in the search engine marketing world. The acquisition of smaller companies by the Big 3 changes the marketing landscape as we know it every month and with every update to the index that is made, we hold our breath and hope that we come out better (if not, the same) in the end. So when it comes to the new year, there are many things that we should look out for to stay on top of the rankings.

1. Quality Content: I say this so often and I cannot overemphasize this enough: Content is KING! Search engine spiders, crawl the net to find what? Content! Your site has information (hopefully) that you want the spiders to see and include in their index. By the creation and publication of quality content, you give the search engines more reason to return. You are feeding them what they want. In 2006, you should be finding creative ways to get your content noticed and viewed as well as finding creative ways to publish fresh content on a regular basis. A very good way this is done is through the use of message boards (hosted on your site) and by blogs (enabling you to publish more frequently).

2. Don't Overextend Your Link Exchange Structure: Backlinks were a popular way to increase your rankings fast in the search engines. The tradition holds: find a PR7 website and trade backlinks and you'll be indexed in Google within 24 hours. That strategy still holds true and is beneficial for new websites.

But in my opinion the days of tremendous link-swapping are coming to an end. Many websites have been founded with the purpose of allowing you to exchange links with other websites. This has caused a massive influx of webmasters who want to exchange a ton of links with the hope that it will help them in the search engines.

But what really matters when it comes to links is the amount of quality one-way backlinks that direct users to your website. You want the balance of links to be in your favor, that is what leads to success.

Also, there has been talk of search engines taking notice of these "link-farms" and penalizing those who take part in them. So if you do take part in link exchanges, please be moderate in respect to the number of exchanges you take part in.

3. RSS and XML: Two new technologies that have begun to take center stage especially in 2005 include a programming language that has been around for several years called XML. XML is shorth for extensible markup language and is a derivative from HTML. The main difference is your ability to create descriptive tags for your data.

This has led to the advent of RSS or real simple syndication. RSS is a way for you to publish your data to an XML file hosted on your site. Users subscribe to your RSS feed via the XML file and whenever you make a changes to your XML file they are notified. It's become a major technology used by news agencies and bloggers alike as a simple method of publishing your information across a wide variety of platforms.

XML has also proved useful with the Google Sitemaps program, newly released in 2005. The optional tags available with the XML sitemap allow you to be descriptive about the individual pages on your site including dates the individual pages were modified. There are some small things you need to pay attention to when creating this: namely you have to follow the Google xml schema, and you have to be diligent about tracking and fixing errors in the code. But if used correctly, it is a great way to help Google index the hidden pages of your website due to javascript or flash.

4. Stay away from Flash and Javascript for the time being: Flash and Javascript are very powerful tools for creating dynamic and eye catching websites. The most prominent problem with the two technologies is that the spiders can't index through them (at least not yet). This limits your ability to have the search engines index portions of your site. Many have speculated that the Big 3 are working on solving this problem, but for the time being, avoid or limit your use of these technologies.

5. Avoid Unethical SEO: There are a lot of programs out there that help you to acheive maxmum linkback ratios in a very short amount of time. Some of them are good; some are bad. In fact, some of them will waste your effort trying to post trivial comments on blogs or trying to maximize your link exchanges. In my opinion, you should seek success in SEM the right, ethical way. Seek out honest web companies to exchange a moderate amount of links with. Post only relevant comments to forums and blogs because that behavior leads to lasting link backs. Also, don't try to manipulate your website to make it appear to have a higher PR than you really do. Google sees that one!

6. Last, but not least, Articles: There is a little bit of controversial talk about whether it is right to post articles for free use in directories. In my opinion, you are providing a well needed service to webmasters and I don't see this one as a potential loss for 2006. Information is valuable. And websites that need content (especially fresh content) desire what you do to make their efforts a success. So it is natural for your website rankings to benefit through backlinks from those articles. It's a win-win situation.

One other thought on this subject. Right now, the search engines can punish websites for having duplicate content, and that is an argument that many will propose. But, the search engines will usually only punish you if the html format of a web site is similar, not a couple of articles. So posting articles is safe for now.

But be cautious. Many lucrative methods of ethical SEO can be turned into a problem when too many people attempt to abuse the technology.

So that's it. Short, but informative. SEO is both an art and a technology that we have to use correctly for the right type of success. Who knows what the year ahead may bring, but playing your cards right, you can acheive success and avoid any pitfalls that may come.

Matt Cutt's on the BIG DADDY Data Center

2006-01-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

About a month ago I alluded to a data center called “Bigdaddy” that people could check out as a preview. We’re ready to collect feedback on the Bigdaddy data center now. Let’s start with some Q&A.

Q: Why are you giving this a name? Isn’t that normally the privilege of Brett Tabke and the moderators at WebmasterWorld (WMW)?
A: Brett and WMW normally name updates. But this is neither an update nor a data refresh; this is new infrastructure. It should be much more subtle/gentle than an update.

Q: Why is it called Bigdaddy?
A: That’s a good story. Bigdaddy got its name right here:

At Pubcon, there was an hour-long Q&A session one morning. After the session was over, a bunch of us skipped the next session of talks to talk more in the lunch room (that’s me in the blue shirt). I knew we had a test data center that would need feedback, so I asked for suggested names. One of the webmasters to my right (JeffM) suggested “Bigdaddy.” Bigdaddy is his nickname because that’s what Jeff’s kids call him. So I said I’d use that the next time we needed a name for feedback.

Q: Why did you wait so long to ask for feedback?
A: There were a couple reasons. First, I knew that Bigdaddy wouldn’t go live before the holidays were over. Second, the team working on this data center wasn’t showing it 100% of the time; at night, they’d take it out of our data center rotation to tinker with it. That would have been a recipe for confusion. Now we’re past the holidays and the Bigdaddy data center is live 100% of the time. In fact, Bigdaddy is now visible at two data centers: 64.233.179.104 and 66.249.93.104.

Q: Do you expect this to become the default source of web results? How long will it take?
A: Yes, I do expect Bigdaddy to become the default source of web results. The length of the transition will depend on lots of different issues. Right now I’m guessing 1-2 months, but if I find out more specifics I’ll let you know.

Q: What’s new and different in Bigdaddy?
A: It has some new infrastructure, not just better algorithms or different data. Most of the changes are under the hood, enough so that an average user might not even notice any difference in this iteration.

Q: I noticed some ranking changes across all data centers. Was that Bigdaddy?
A: Probably not. There was a completely unrelated data refresh that went live at every data center on December 27th. Bigdaddy is only live at 64.233.179.104 and 66.249.93.104 right now.

Q: Is there specific types of feedback that you want?
A: We’d like to get general quality feedback. For example, this data center lays the groundwork for better canonicalization, although most of that will follow down the road. But some improvements are already visible with site: searches. The site: operator now returns more intuitive results (this is actually live at all data centers now).

Q: What else can you tell me about Bigdaddy?
A: In my opinion, this data center improves in several of the ways that you’d measure a search engine. But for now, the main feedback we’re looking for is just general quality and canonicalization.

Q: Will this datacenter make me coffee? Is it the solution to all possible issues ever?
A: No. No data center will make 100% of people happy. For every url that moves into the top 10, another url moves out. And the changes on Bigdaddy are relatively subtle (less ranking changes and more infrastructure changes). Most of the changes are under the hood, and this infrastructure prepares the framework for future improvements throughout the year. If you see a webspam or quality issue, let us know so that we can work on it.

Let’s finish off with a couple more Q&A’s.

Q: I see something weird on the Bigdaddy data center. Should I leave a comment on your blog?
A: Please don’t; that’s not the best place to leave it. I would leave the feedback either in a spam report (for webspam) or the “dissatisfied” form for any other feedback. The only Google person reading the comments on this blog will be me, so your feedback will get the best bang-for-the-buck if you put it into one of those two forms.

Q: Are you sure you don’t want me to just drop a quick comment about my problem here? Right now?
A: I’m about blogged out for the day, and there are better places to discuss this stuff (WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums, etc.). The best way to get people to process your feedback is to use the spam report form or the dissatisfied link, make sure that you include the keyword “bigdaddy” and try to be as specific and clear as you can.

Okay, now let’s get to the meat of this post: how to give us feedback on Bigdaddy. I’d be delighted to get webspam feedback, but I’m most interested in hearing feedback about canonicalization, redirects, duplicate urls, www vs. non-www, and similar issues. Before you send in a report, please read my previous posts on url canonicalization, the inurl operator, and 302 redirects. Now here’s where to send feedback:

Reporting spam in the bigdaddy data center
I definitely want to hear about webspam that you see in Google. The best place to do that is to go to http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html . In the “Additional details:” section, I would use the keyword “bigdaddy” in your report.

Reporting other quality issues in Google’s index
Do the search that you’re interested in on 64.233.179.104 or 66.249.93.104, then click the “Dissatisfied? Help us improve” link at the bottom right of the page. Again, fill in details and use the keyword bigdaddy so that folks at Google can separate out feedback specifically about this data center.

If I see feedback reports that aren’t helpful, I’ll try to provide suggestions for how to give solid reports that we can use.

Spam at it's best

2006-01-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

Expecially when you get something like this. Keep in mind my main site receives 2000 visitors per day.. Are these guys nuts?

I got this in my email

Hello Todd

This is Sean the mad scientist at Marketingtool.com. The Marketingtool.com web design shop directory has featured listing spots available in your region. Marketingtool.com was founded in 1999 and has grown to become the largest and most popular directory of its kind. Over ten thousand people a day visit while shopping for a vendor. With over 58,000 vendors a featured listing promotes you to the first page of multiple cities in your desired region(s). My featured listing vendors are my primary clients and they are small businesses - just like mine. Take a look at a small sample of available featured listings below:

The exclusive guaranteed 2nd listed Vermont Search Engine Optimization Directory State-wide featured listing for Vermont. Based on current performance, we estimate more than 98 visitors will click through to this listing during the next twelve months. During that time over 140 visitors will see this listing. Fee is $20 for a 3 month - or $50 for a 12 month - reservation with the option to renew indefinitely.

Google New years update happening now?

2006-01-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

I noticed it about an hour ago the infamous "test results" have now spread to 5 Data centers.. We will see by morning.

Co-op's can get you banned. From Matt Cutts

2005-12-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

A direct quote from Matt Cutt's blog. Take it for what it is.

Matt Said,
December 30, 2005 @ 12:42 pm

Michael, I have no desire to rank for plumbing queries. Hagrin, I don’t mind being a webmaster punching bag at times. The thing I wanted to remind people of is that there are often two sides to a story.

Shoemoney, the site that you mentioned in your other comment looked like it had been involved in a lot of co-operative link networks and such? If you’re not involved in that stuff any more, I’d file a reinclusion request for the site. It was also a little strange that you had sites for each wireless provider.

graywolf, I’m sticking with 1.0.7 until everything is available on 1.5. Call me selfish, but I can’t afford to have an unstable browser for my job.

Test DC May spread this weekend

2005-12-30T08:07:00.000-08:00

I want to stress that this is my GUT Feelings alot like Gibb's would have on the CBS show NAVY NCIS. But from watching the test Data Center evolve over the past 30 days it appears that the tweaks are almost done.. My gut tells me that it will spread this weekend. Let's see if my gut is wrong. More talk will be forthcoming at Vermont Webmasters

Google's BIG UPDATE

2005-12-28T10:14:00.000-08:00

Okay here goes. I know I have had a discussion with Caryl in the past about a theory of a Christmas update mixing up the serp's to push adwords as well as push Christmas related sites to the top whiole the rest of us drop off. Now if this theory is true then I just realised where I might have made a horrible mistake prior to Christmas this year... Our main site is a wheel and tire site.. This year for Jagger we dropped off the map for the most part.. Now last year I remember the serp's being all messed up however My site (if memory serves me correctly did fine) However last year on many pages I put " wheels & tires make great Christmas gifts" as well as a couple of other ctchy frases for Christmas... This year I did not do that and boom look what happened.. I only started thinking about this after reading these 2 posts on Webmaster World.

Post 1 "caution: wild theory follows
I follow these update topics just like everyone else when my site drops in the rankings for no apparent reason. My site, for the last 3 years, has dropped dramatically in the rankings just prior the "Christmas" buying season(middle/beginning of Nov.) only to return to its previous identical/near identical ranking very soon after Christmas. No changes to the site at all. This year is no exception. The "jagger" update dropped my consistent top 10 ranking to anywhere from 180-500. Guess what happened yesterday? I have jumped back to the top 10 to my original pre-"jagger" position.

I am not convinced that there was actually a "jagger" update. My theory is that the pre-christmas "update" (every year for past 3 years) is really a completely seperate index not just an algo change to help push retail sales type sites to the front for searchers looking to shop for Christmas or something along those lines."

Post 2 "You may not be so crazy. For the past two years, my Christmas site has shot up in the rankings right before the season, and then lost them again right after Christmas. This morning, all my fabulous rankings are gone (just like last year). Luckily, for me, my rankings were good during the time period I needed them to be.
I have been under the assumption that traffic had a lot to do with it. If G sees people going to the site, it ups the rankings. If G sees a dropoff, it drops the rankings. However, your theory could hold some water as well.

There's definitely a pattern developing with my site...just not sure what the pattern means yet."

I was ridiculled real bad for bringing up this theory on another forum.. So bad I believed I was probably wrong.. Well Now I am believing that maybe I was right to begin with.. What if Jagger was just a cloud of smoke brought on to cover up something else? I do see that the results on the test DC are very simialer to pre jagger...

Thoughts please and thanks for listening.

Todd
_________________
http://www.vermontwebmasters.com
http://www.vermontshoppingnetwork.com
http://www.barretire.com

YPN Revenue sharing Forum. Awesome idea.

2005-12-24T06:18:00.000-08:00

A new YPN Ad revenue sharing forum. I encourage everyone to check it out today.

Putting the AOL deal with Google into perespective.

2005-12-23T05:33:00.000-08:00

From the Google blog

About the AOL announcement
12/22/2005 06:25:00 PM

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience

The recent announcement of the AOL partnership has been the source of a lot of rumors and misconceptions. We'd like to clear some of those up.

- Biased results? No way. Providing great search is the core of what we do. Business partnerships will never compromise the integrity or objectivity of our search results. If a partner's page ranks high, it's because they have a good answer to your search, not because of their business relationship with us.

- Indexing more of AOL's content. Our goal is to organize all of the world's information. When we say "all the world's information," this includes AOL's. We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works (with regard to robots.txt, how to use redirects, non-html content, etc.) so we don't inadvertently overlook their content.

- AOL will receive a credit towards advertising purchased through Google's ad program. You might wonder if this will affect the ad auction. It won't. We don't offer preferential treatment on advertising (in either the auction or the display) to any of our partners.

- We have a service called "onebox" for which we provide some additional links separate from ads (sponsored links) and search results. (Try searching on [new york transit strike] and look for the news section.) AOL and its products have always been a part of onebox, along with many other providers, and will continue to be.

- There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.

Our service and our business works because of you - our users. You're important to us and something that we think about all the time -- as we build new products, negotiate deals, and think about what our future holds.

We're looking forward to what AOL can help us do for you, and believe that our new agreement with them will only create a better experience for you in 2006 and beyond -- one where you can continue to trust that we're giving you a result because it's the best one we can possibly provide

Matt Cutts on post Jagger and the test DC going live

2005-12-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

Matt Cutts posted tonight at 9:28 (Sounds like a cover up for the Christmas update. Caryl you said after the 2oth.. Wow are you good today is the 21st)

"Let’s see, where are we? Jagger wrapped up by about November 18th. I tried to impress on folks at Google that to the extent possible, you don’t want to make major shake-ups to the index during the holiday shopping season, so people should either launch their changes relatively early (e.g. like Jagger), or try to hold off until after the holiday season is winding down. Sometimes you don’t really have a choice because something is ready to go, but post-Jagger I think things were pretty quiet in the index this past month.

We’re getting closer to calling for feedback on 64.233.179.104, but I probably won’t ask for reactions for another week or two. Right now that datacenter isn’t serving traffic 100% of the time as people pull it out of the rotation from time to time to tune things up under the hood. That data center has some infrastructure that I think in time will work better for canonicalization and redirects. We also recently improved site: to show slightly more logical urls as well. "
More info and forum coverage at Vermont Webmasters Forum

Google deal with AOL goes public

2005-12-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

A 5% stake in AOL: $1 billion. Google's new all-time high share value: $432.50. Rubbing Bill Gates' nose in it: Priceless.

America Online parent Time Warner (nyse: TWX - news - people ) and Eric Schmidt's Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) announced a broadening of their search and advertising partnership late Tuesday, which will leave the spurned Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) suitors cursing their rotten luck as a chance to get a grip on the lucrative business of selling online ads goes begging.

As well as besting the Microsoft chairman, Schmidt's inking of a deal to join its colors with AOL means Google retains the Internet portal's pay-per-click dollars that make up 10% of its revenue and simultaneously forges a relationship with a huge content producer. It will continue to provide search technology for AOL.

Other tie-ups: Google also agreed to integrate AOL's video clips in its embryonic video service, and AOL also gets credits to promote its Web sites and content through the search engine's keyword ads, known as sponsored links. The Google Talk instant-messaging system will be dovetailed with AOL's instant-messaging program, as long as users sign up for a free AIM screen name. While wanting to keep the salt away from the already stinging wounds, Microsoft will rue this tie-up--it had long hoped to strike a deal with AOL to make its MSN Messenger compatible with AOL's market-leading messenger service.

Yet Microsoft's failed courtship demonstrates the software leviathan isn't the hot-headed sort. "I think they've learned that you don't do a deal at any price just to do a deal. You do a deal that makes sense for you," one analyst was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. "For Microsoft it was kind of a nice to have," opined another. "For Google it was a must have."

Google BL Update

2005-12-20T09:35:00.000-08:00

Well folks it appears the BL update happened late yesterday..Have not confirmed any PR update however.

New website

2005-12-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

Our newest website for you to look at. http://www.vermontshoppingnetwork.com

Matt Cutt's definition of a Google Update

2005-12-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

Definition of a Google Update from Matt Cutts.

(Normally I, you know, think before I post. I’m experimenting with the quick-post-with-very-little-thought technique here.)

What is an update? Google updates its index data, including backlinks and PageRank, continually and continuously. We only export new backlinks, PageRank, or directory data every three months or so though. (We started doing that last year when too many SEOs were suffering from “B.O.”, short for backlink obsession.) When new backlinks/PageRank appear, we’ve already factored that into our rankings quite a while ago. So new backlinks/PageRank are fun to see, but it’s not an update; it’s just already-factored-in data being exported visibly for the first time in a while.

Google also crawls and updates its index every day, so different or more index data usually isn’t an update either. The term “everflux” is often used to describe the constant state of low-level changes as we crawl the web and rankings consequently change to a minor degree. That’s normal, and that’s not an update.

Usually, what registers with an update to the webmaster community is when we update an algorithm (or its data), change our scoring algorithms, or switch over to a new piece of infrastructure. Technically Update Gilligan is just backlink/PageRank data becoming visible once more, not a real update. There haven’t been any substantial algorithmic changes in our scoring in the last few days. I’m happy to try to give weather reports when we do our update scoring/algo data though.

Google's BIG Daddy data center comes into play.

2005-12-14T16:45:00.000-08:00

Interesting post I just found about the Test DC that Now is coming into play. This post was made yesterday however the person had not read what Matt Cutt's wrote in his blog about the test DC moving into regular rotation.. Anyhow it is an interesting read...

"OK - Jagger is over - long live "Big Daddy" - as named by MC for the test DC.
The index growing on 64.233.179.104 does seem to be largely a Mozilla Googlebot generated index - and this new index is being built for the future - so can we say Mozilla Googlebot is now taking over from normal Googlebot.

OK ignore supplimentals etc for a moment - as all DCs have this problem and have a look at the cache dates for pages that are indexed...... some of these pages have only been fetched by Mozzilla Googlebot (even on the same day as normal Googlebot visited)

Eg. On the test DC I have a homepage cached 30th November at 5:40 - fetched by Mozilla Googlebot - while on the other DCs it is cached on 30th November at 3:40 - fetched by normal Googlebot.

So in many ways this does look like building a whole new index parrellel to the existing index - with largely Mozilla Googlebot crawl data.

Some pages appear very old - eg another page is cached on the test dc on 6th November - but on the other dcs it has cache in December - checking the logs - 6th November was the last time Mozilla Googlebot visited this page.

OK - there are pages in the test DC only visited by normal Googlebot - however, pages crawled by Mozilla Googlebot do not appear on other DCs.

The newest pages on the DC crawled by Mozilla Googlebot seem to be in November - eg no pages crawled by Mozilla Googlebot in December have made it to the index yet.

Some pages crawled by Mozilla Googlebot in November have not made it to the index - so I dont know if G are working with a sample data size......

For confirmation that this is a whole new build of the index MC said on his blog:-

"the test data center certainly has some different crawling and indexing characteristics."

OK - folks remember also that MC said that this index will roll out in months and is in a test state so I guess no need for early panic stations and slagging of Google in this thread.

Now 301s, 302s, Canonicals - for me a lot more 301s Google has crawled and indexed correctly. 302s - still lots in the index (mainly supplimentals) - not seeing any new 302s that show the url of the linking site but the content of the destination site (seeing the newest at about August 2005 time) - no doubt others may find some.

What are other observations people have seen with the new crawling and indexing on this test dc. "

Interesting post I found on a Forum

2005-12-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

Just my 2 cents—possible interps of what is going on:
• G is making a legit attempt to fix issues but got lost in the update wilderness
Proof—terrible search results, unto ridiculous even (my well written little site fell from p1 to 16 overnight, and my listing on p16 is a secondary page—sometimes even my /links page—with the main page for the keyword indented beneath it, my link partners come up on the first several pages with my listing on their site highlighted—even for a search by my site name, one listing ahead of mine is for a knitting pattern service—which made me laugh and then want to cry, and much more silliness).
• G is playing games to make more money (increased adwords revenue, which one must increase to keep G traffic at its usual levels, to make any damned money)
Proof—all of my traffic from G is adwords given my new all-time low search results
• G is now a big corporate monster in spades and does not care if our businesses suffer, the biggest fish in the pond and so filled with big-fish hubris because the other SEs pale by comparison in their reach
Proof—everywhere you look on any G search (and this forum)
• G really has a plan and it will be made clear to us in the end, like God’s plan when one dies (and trying to contact G is pretty much just like saying a prayer: the words go off into the ether without hope that we will ever hear a reply: please show us a sign oh mighty G!)
Proof—none because the big fish doesn’t feel it needs to tell us anything at all; the inscrutable G-fish just listens in on these forums and laughs heartily as the krill scheme and hypothesize and vent (like I am doing now), so smile, for indeed we may be the butts of a cosmic joke--until G gets some real competition (but then the jealous G might kick in: ‘thou shalt have no other SEs before me,’ and what punishments might we expect then?)

Don't forget do check out our newest site Vermont Webmasters

More Test DC news

2005-12-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

Well this is from MAtt Cutts blog.. This may have something to do with the Christmas theory who knows

"That data center (64.233.179.104) recently moved into regular rotation recently, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one more data center joined it in the next week or so. After that, I’d expect those two data centers to stay in the rotation (but not spread) until after the holidays. Not sure about that, but that’s my best guess."

YPN getting more rellevant

2005-12-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

From what I am seeing the ad's displayed from YPN are getting more rellevant all the time.. I have seen a big chnage this week anyone else?

In troducing our new site for Vermont Website owners

2005-12-11T07:19:00.000-08:00

Hope you enjoy.

Test DC now showing on Google.com

2005-12-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

Test DC now showing on Google.com.. Http://www.vermontwebmasters.com our newest site.

Matt Cutts Interview. Also Test DC's spreading

2005-12-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

Interview with Matt Cutts. Dupl content on your own site.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just listened to the Matt Cutts radio interview. Maybe I'm not understanding this right, but he indicated that if you have multiple pages with identical phrases of text on the same site, that would be viewed as duplicate content. " From another forum..

There is some interesting information on this radio interview.. Hope it helps some people.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/r.cgi?...5/MW120205.mp3

Also someone posted that the test dc has spread to the following I have not verified..

64.233.161.105
64.233.171.99
64.233.171.104
64.233.171.105
64.233.171.107
64.233.171.147
64.233.179.99
64.233.179.104
64.233.179.106
64.233.179.107
64.233.185.99
64.233.185.104
216.239.39.98
216.239.39.99
216.239.39.104
216.239.39.105
216.239.39.106
216.239.39.107

Interview with Matt Cutts and new test DC's spreading

2005-12-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

Apparently Google Test DC starting to spread to the following

2005-12-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

64.233.161.105
64.233.171.99
64.233.171.104
64.233.171.105
64.233.171.107
64.233.171.147
64.233.179.99
64.233.179.104
64.233.179.106
64.233.179.107
64.233.185.99
64.233.185.104
216.239.39.98
216.239.39.99
216.239.39.104
216.239.39.105
216.239.39.106
216.239.39.107

Test Data Center may come into play

2005-11-29T06:56:00.000-08:00

Matt Cutts posted on his blog "P.S. I might put out a call for comments on that test data center sometime this week"

It is hard to say what this could meen however byt the sounds of it this data center may start coming into play late in December is my prediction....

Let's all send Spam reports to Google

2005-11-27T17:06:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest post by Reseller at Webmasterworld

Good evening Folks
Your talk about spam just reminded me. It has been more than a week (or at least it feels so) since we have enjoyed together an anti-spam spot. To those of you who missed it so much, here it is :-)

Don't wait to send Jagger-related spam feedback; I'd send that now. Using the keyword "Jagger3" at http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html will get someone reading and checking it out.

Don't keep Matt "Inigo" Cutts & Co waiting :-)

This is the lamest thing I have seen.. Matt Cutts is sitting back laughing his ass off right now.. People are reporting all of the sites that come up better then them on the serps thinking they are actually doing some good.. Yes that is how it is done If you are at pos 50 report the 49 sites that come up before you and in 2-3 days bingo you are again at the top of the serp's. The SAD reallity is you have kiss asses such as reseller who actually think that it works... Open your eyes people the spam reports are not working.. Google is messed up right now either intentionally or not the bottom line is it is messed up. The Spam reports are just a cover up to keep you buisy spending your time searching and sending those reports...YOU ARE WAISTING YOUR TIME

BLACK FRIDAY Jagger Syle

2005-11-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

Now I don't know if Jagger is over or not.. Honestly I hope not but either way alot of us got hit hard by this one. Our Black Friday happened the middle of October or earlier for some people. I just wanted to bring up some thoughts that may or may not be true I want to stress that they are just thoughts..

Alot of people have touched on the subject that Google does this every year around this time.. Alot of it doesn't make sense to me however alot of it does..After a month of ups and downs it seems funny that everything settles just before Black Friday. It also seems funny that it apperas that Google stocks have also skyrocketed since the beggining of this and that people are spending more money on Adwords. If you are a retail site and got hit byt this update what are you to do when you are used to a certain amount of traffic...Just give up?? I think not... You gotta do what you gotta do and that to most means spend money on Adwords.. It would make sense to scramble the results from Googles perspective since the sites that were doing good are not using Adwords all that much and the ones that shot up in the serps that were normally way back in the results are spending alot of money on Adwords. So the sites that gained so much will stay spending the money and probably more and the sites that lost will have no choice but to start doing the same...

This is not my belief of what is happening or happened totally just some thoughts.. What do you think?

Happy Thanksgiving to all

2005-11-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving

Google Analytics not taking anyone new?

2005-11-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

From pc world.com

Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Google's hosted Web analytics service Google Analytics suffered serious performance problems earlier this week, after the company announced the service would be available free of charge, but seemed to have stabilized by Wednesday.

"They clearly underestimated the number of people trying to sign up on Monday," said Alan Gahtan, an attorney based in Toronto, who spent hours on Monday trying to sign up for the service, which used to cost $199 per month.

Google Analytics, formerly known as Urchin on Demand, lets users monitor visits to their Web sites. The users can track, for example, the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns and to determine how to modify Web pages to improve sales conversions.

Sluggish Start
After Gahtan managed to register, he again faced much difficulty logging in, and, once logged in, found the service extremely slow and repeatedly got kicked off to a page saying Google Analytics was down for maintenance and to please try back later.

He couldn't look at usage data gathered by the service until Tuesday afternoon, and even then the data wasn't precisely fresh, but running more like 24 hours behind, he said.

By Wednesday, the service seemed stable and working properly, said Gahtan, who is using Google Analytics to track usage of his Web site, which he uses to market his practice, a boutique law firm specializing in IT and e-commerce matters.

Eddy Kawira, general manager of Extreme Software, had no trouble signing up for Google Analytics on Monday, but he faced major difficulties setting up the four Web sites he wanted to track. Like Gahtan, he found the service slow and kept getting redirected to the page saying Google Analytics was down for maintenance.

By Tuesday, he could get on to the service without major problems, but there was little for him to do there: Google Analytics wasn't showing him any data. He finally saw data on Wednesday morning for three of the four Web sites, said Kawira, whose employer, Extreme Software, is based near Oklahoma City and develops and sells customized software for furniture manufacturers.

Returnees Have Hassle
The problem wasn't limited to those trying to sign up for the service for the first time on Monday. Ethan Stock, founder of local events search provider Zvents, ripped into Google on Monday in his personal blog after he encountered various performance and sign-on problems when he accessed Google Analytics.

"Right now, I feel like Google doesn't care about me enough as a customer to tell me that they're changing a product I pay for. They don't care enough about me as a customer to make sure that my login doesn't change, or that they at least ask or warn me before changing my login. They don't care enough about me as a customer to make sure that the re-launch of their product doesn't dramatically impact the people who are already paying them lots of money," Stock wrote. He didn't immediately return a call seeking further comment.

"The demand for Google Analytics was much higher than we expected. The service is now completely restored and full service is available to everyone," a Google spokesperson wrote via e-mail when asked for comment on Wednesday.

That Google fumbled the launch of this service is hard to believe, given the company's profile and resources, Extreme Software's Kawira said. "They should have known they were going to have a huge amount of people sign up," he said.

Despite the subpar performance of the service so far, Kawira isn't ready to give up on it. "I'm definitely going to stick with it because I'm confident they will iron it out," he said.

In the meantime, Google has been cleaning pie from its face. "Needless to say, the criticism of Google Analytics is not without merit--they flubbed the launch in a big way," wrote Jupiter Research analyst Eric Peterson in a posting on the company's official analyst blog.

Search Engine Talk

2005-11-19T12:30:00.000-08:00

Search Engine Talk

Pubcon Boston 2006

2005-11-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

I plan on attending Pubcon 2006 in Boston this spring. Hopefully they will release the dates soon. Anyone else planning on going to Boston? Here is the link to watch http://www.pubcon.com/boston2006.htm

2005-11-14T18:41:00.000-08:00

Google has now re-branded Urchin to Google Analytics presenting users with better ways to “understand and influence visitor behavior and generate a higher ROI on marketing initiatives”. Yes folks! It’s offering a free hosted web analytics service, in hopes that advertisers, publishers and website owners will spend time understanding how people find their websites, navigate through them and convert on the goals of the site. With the free service, Google hopes it helps people spend money on their search marketing campaigns rather than on measurement. This is going to have a huge impact on both the search marketing and the web analytics industries.

2005-11-11T07:32:00.000-08:00

Looks like things are winding down for Jagger 3, From my understanding with GG post on WMW we should be seeing the final results spreading by early next week. Anyone else finding anything different?

Jagger 3 is it still showing?

2005-11-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

This whole thing has got my head spinning. Nothing makes sense with the numbers and the ups and downs.. Last night it looked like Jagger 3 was starting as Matt Cutts had said but from what I am seeing the data has all changed again and makes no sense...What are your thoughts?

Is Google affected?? This was taken this afternoon

2005-11-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

Now the testing is done. Let's get to it

2005-11-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

JAGGER a very familiar word lately. Alot of big chnges at Google that is in one way or another effecting all of us..what are your thoughts??

Search Engine Talk

2005-11-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

Search Engine Talk

Testing Blog

2005-11-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

Testing Blog